Garbage, filth and dirt are not what you’d normally expect to see in a museum exhibit. But the Plastic Garbage Project in Zurich, Switzerland, is breaking all the rules.

According to the Museum of Design Zurich, the vast amounts of plastic pictured here, gets released into the sea every 15 seconds! And they’ve brought the issue to life and placed it on display from July 4th to September 2nd 2012.

Thanks to our awesome Project AWARE volunteers for contributing marine debris as part of this exhibition. Our friends at AquaMarine Diving Bali, sent a package of debris including fishing line, rope and plastic bottles collected from Blue Lagoon, Bali.

The museum exhibition presents facts about plastic pollution and examines various questions about the advantages and disadvantages of using synthetic products while also presenting solutions aimed at consumer action.

Project AWARE's infographic "The Ugly Journey of our Trash" is also displayed at the exhibition to show visitors how different kinds of debris threaten marine life.

Plastic Garbage Project Facts:

• 6’400’000’000 kilograms of plastic garbage end up in the sea every year.
• This is equivalent to 17’500’000 kilograms per day or 12’000 kilograms per minute.
• The garbage installed in the Museum weights 3’000 kilograms.
• Every 15 seconds the amount of plastic garbage you see in this video gets dumped into the sea.
• It took 1000 hours to pick up the garbage of just one beach. (30 people, ...4 days)

I don’t know about you, but these facts alone are inspiration for September’s Debris Month of Action!